Temporary bridge jobs for disabled workers

Country of implementation

The Netherlands

General short description of the innovation

This innovation temporarily provided wage subsidies of 50% of minimum wage for one year to disability benefit recipients whose disability level was re-assessed following the disability benefit reform of 2004. The objective was to stimulate placement into work of this group by providing an incentive to the employer.

Target group

Disabled

Policy Field

employment

social

Type of Policy

public

Duration of the policy

2008-2009

Scope of innovation

Scope: Temporary

Budgets: 48.6 million

Number of intended beneficiaries: 4,050 re-assessed disabled with an indication for wage subsidy

Spatial coverage: national

General description of (intended) objectives and strategies

This program is meant as a temporary incentive for employers to hire unemployed on disability benefits who lost (part of) their benefits following their re-assessment since 2004. The strategy consists of a wage-subsidy for the period of one year of 50% of the minimum wage, which should reduce the financial risk for employers to hire this vulnerable group.

Nature of the innovation-short-term perspective

Temporary program

Type of innovation

new policy, practice or measure

retrenchment or expansion of an existing/earlier policy

New outputs

others (Wage-subsidy for employers)

Intended target group

Re-assessed disability benefit recipients and employers

Working age population

employment situation (Unemployed)

main source of income: social protection (disability benefits or possibly UEB (after loosing disability benefits following the re-assessment))

Employers-private institutional actors

Employers willing to hire partially disabled workers

Actors involved in policy-making/implementation and/or evaluation

agency or national social insurance body (Implementation of the program)

A small number of disabled unemployed have found a job using this wage subsidy

Intended and unintended outcomes

260 unemployed or 6% of the target group found a job

Clarification of outcomes in terms of impacting resilience and labour market inclusion

The policy has hardly contributed to the placement of re-assessed disabled unemployed. Few people were placed, often in insecure (temporary) jobs. The evaluation mentions that the policy has hardly been used by re-integration companies to realise placements in work. Two reasons are given: the subsidy does not provide enough incentive given the vulnerable target group and the program was implemented after the crisis which made employers more risk-averse. Nevertheless, employers indicate that they do consider these kinds of policies when thinking about hiring disabled workers.